Breath hissed out of Skinner. ‘Jesus. Hidden in my bloody desk? And I said to Andy, that if I had hidden it, I’d have put it where I felt most secure. That smart bastard Cheshire must have thought along the same lines.’
He smiled grimly at Pam, completely without humour. ‘Commandment number five, Sergeant: thou shalt not underestimate your adversary. I’m always breaking that one. If only I’d had the sense to search my fucking office before he did!
‘The bastard who set me up must have broken into Fettes right enough. I tell you, when this is over, I’m going to have such a security blitz on that office!’ He snorted. ‘Except that if I don’t come up with something pretty fast, when this is over I’m going to be the subject of some pretty tight security myself.’ He stepped back into the shower.
‘I think I’ll ask to be sent to Shotts Prison. My friend Big Lenny Plenderleith and I would make quite a team. We’d be running the place inside a week.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Pam cried. She stepped into the shower beside him, rubbing her face in the wet hair of his chest. ‘None of that will happen. You will come up with something; you’re invincible. Don’t think about it. Think about this instead.’
She picked up a hot, wet sponge, ran it up the inside of his thigh, and began to massage him. He grinned down at her. ‘You’re a bit optimistic, aren’t you? Not even I have that good a mental isolator switch. Besides, I’ve covered most of Scotland today, and back again.’ He switched off the shower and reached for two towels.
The smile vanished and the glower was back. ‘Be patient. Maybe, after a couple of years they’ll allow us a conjugal visit.’
64
Skinner was familiar with Parliament House and with the Advocates Library, headquarters of the Scottish Bar. So was Alex, from student visits, and from occasional visits as a teenager, to watch her father give evidence as a police witness in a significant trial.
But neither had ever been inside the Lord Reid Building, the advocates’ consultation centre, until they arrived in its small courtyard off the Royal Mile. Number 142 High Street, in New Assembly Close, was built in 1814 by James Gillespie Graham as the Commercial Bank. Much later, before its acquisition by the Faculty of Advocates, it housed the popular Edinburgh Wax Museum. Skinner guessed that currently far fewer people passed through its doors every year than during its time as a tourist attraction, but that in income terms, its turnover was far greater.
‘Consultation with Miss Christabel Innes Dawson, QC,’ Mitchell Laidlaw announced to the uniformed Faculty Officer at the small desk in the reception hall.
‘Very good, sir,’ said the man. ‘If your party will please go into the waiting room.’ He pointed them towards a large, leather-upholstered waiting room, its walls hung with works of art from the Faculty’s extensive collection, and with a large fireplace similar in size and style to that in the formal drawing room in Bute House, and which Skinner guessed at once was original. The policeman in him thought of the profitable trade in stolen antiquities and of the signs posted on several disused Georgian and Victorian offices in and around Edinburgh’s Golden Mile which advised potential burglars that all fireplaces had been removed. ‘If they ever find out where the store is . . .’ he had said once to Andy Martin.
Normally an advocate will arrive to greet solicitors and clients and to take them to their consultation rooms. But Christabel Innes Dawson QC was far too senior and venerable to do her own fetching. After a few minutes, the attendant reappeared. ‘If you will follow me, gentlemen, madam . . . Miss Dawson will receive you in Room Five.’
The trio followed him, latterly in single file because of the narrowness of the corridor which led to the rear of the building, until they reached a flight of four steps, with a varnished door at the top. The attendant knocked, opened it and announced them: ‘Mr Laidlaw and party, Miss Dawson.’
Christabel Innes Dawson QC did not rise as her instructing solicitor led her client into the room. She was seated at a very ordinary round table, in a very ordinary room, a far cry from that in which they had awaited her pleasure. She surveyed them as they entered one by one, the attendant retreating and closing the door.
Finally she nodded to the solicitor. ‘Well, Mr Laidlaw.’ The words seemed to roll from her tongue. ‘I had begun to despair that you would ever instruct me in a case. I know all about you, mind. When Ken, my clerk, told me you wanted me in this matter, I asked three senior members of Faculty about you. Two of them described you as the best litigation solicitor in Scotland. The third said you were a shark in a lagoon filled with holiday-making children. I think he was saying the same thing as the other two, only in a different way.
‘Sit down, sit down please. You’re all so tall.’
She turned her attention to Skinner. ‘Well, Chief Inspector . . . or what is it now? . . . this is a sad surprise. I never imagined for one instant that when the great Mr Laidlaw finally called on me it would be to represent you in a criminal cause.
‘Last time our paths crossed, literally, was in Aberlady, I think, a couple of weeks ago. Your informal salute was appreciated. So few people pay respects these days to a funeral cortège. There was a time when gentlemen always removed their hats as a hearse passed by. So few gentlemen left now,’ she mused.
‘Maybe just fewer with hats, Miss Dawson,’ said Skinner, gently.
‘Maybe, maybe.’ Her eyes flashed suddenly, with a cunning gleam. ‘If memory serves, you were in your car with the young lady I’ve been reading about. Well, I certainly won’t be the one to criticise you for such a relationship.’ She frowned for an instant. ‘I’d tell her she’s a bloody fool though.’
Beside her father Alex gasped, but Miss Dawson ignored her presence. She guessed that with her apprenticeship completed and two or three years’ experience at the Bar, she might merit a nod.
Skinner looked at his Senior Counsel. He had seen her only twice before out of her court dress, each time from a distance. For their meeting she wore a formal charcoal grey suit, and a white blouse, with a ruffled collar. He guessed that she had a dozen such outfits in her wardrobe, and precious little else.
Close to, she really did look old, he realised, but he was not surprised, since judging by the year of her Calling to the Bar, she could not be less than seventy-eight. He had expected her hair to be shorter, and more grey, until he took a second look and realised that she wore a wig not only for court but on all public appearances.
But her voice disguised her frailty and her years. It had kept its strength through over fifty years of practice, and even now, it was only faintly reedy as she spoke.
She addressed Laidlaw once more. ‘Thank you for the papers which you sent to my clerk. I have read them.’ She glanced quickly and slightly mischievously at Skinner.‘You realise that means that the meter’s running, young man.’
Skinner nodded. He knew also that her meter was one of the most reasonable at the Bar. Although her clerk was free to negotiate private fees, she never charged more than the appropriate Legal Aid rate for criminal work.
She looked directly at Laidlaw once more. ‘As I say, I’ve read them, and I’ve been made aware of yesterday’s subsequent development, the discovery of the receipt in Mr Skinner’s office. I’m glad at least that there were no fingerprints on it.
‘You know I must ask you this. Would a plea of “Guilty” be considered by our client, should the Crown wish to negotiate surrender terms?’
Mitch Laidlaw shook his round head vigorously. ‘Under no circumstances. Our client maintains his innocence, and believes that he is the victim of a clever, ruthless and well-planned conspiracy.’ He relaxed slightly. ‘In any event, given the evidence which they have, it’s difficult to imagine how the Crown could come up with a reduced charge, or why it would wish to.’
‘Indeed. Very well. Let’s look at our cards.’ She leaned across the table, her skinny arms folded. ‘On the face of it, the signature is a problem. However, I note Mr Skinner’s explanation of how it might have
been obtained. I find that credible. So, I believe, will the members of the jury, as long as we can sow other seeds of doubt in their minds, in respect of other aspects of the Crown case.’
She glanced briefly at Skinner. ‘I like the point about the Bank of England notes. I think that is odd enough to start the jury thinking, also.
‘Then there is the bank manager’s unwitting identification of the photofit of the suspect in the McGrath and Anderson cases as the courier who delivered the money, a chap with evident malice towards our client. That’s a piece of luck.’
‘Hold on, though, Miss Dawson,’ Skinner intervened. ‘That’s a coincidence, that’s all. Not even I believe for a second that it’s the same man.’
The ancient Queen’s Counsel gathered her breath and frowned at him, with a degree of outrage. ‘What you believe or do not is of no interest to me or relevance to your case. You are the accused here, not the investigator. It is what I can make the jury believe that will determine your future liberty, so any doubts you may have about your own defence arguments would be best kept to yourself.’
The big policeman grinned. No-one had spoken to him in that tone since he was a detective constable.
‘We can argue on both those points,’ his Counsel continued. ‘But for me, the strongest card they have is the Crown’s lack of information on who might have paid this money, and for what purpose.’
She looked at Skinner again. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask for your professional view. Would you be completely happy to be proceeding in a case with such an omission?’
The DCC considered her question, and as he did, he began to feel optimistic, for the first time in forty-eight hours. ‘No,’ he answered at last. ‘I don’t think that I would.’ He grinned. ‘I certainly wouldn’t fancy having you cross-examine me in those circumstances.’
The old lady nodded her gracious thanks for his compliment. ‘Very well then, gentlemen. Our best hope is that the donor of this hundred thousand pounds remains unidentified. Who knows, Mr Skinner? Legally, you may even be able to keep it.’
Mitch Laidlaw smiled at the idea. ‘What can we expect next, Miss Dawson?’ he asked.
‘A charge, I should think. The Secretary of State has really set up poor Archie Nelson with his damn investigation. Politics and justice aren’t supposed to mix, but in these circumstances, I doubt if the new Lord Advocate can afford not to let this one go to trial.
‘So you’d better brace yourself, young man . . .’ she addressed Alex for the first time, ‘. . . and you, young lady. It will probably get worse, before it starts to get better.’
65
‘Sir James,’ said Cheshire, sitting not in the comfortable suite where callers were usually received, but in a straight-backed chair set in front of the Chief’s big desk, ‘you really shouldn’t be doing this, you know.
‘My remit here is to investigate and report to the Lord Advocate, no-one else.’
Proud Jimmy nodded. ‘So I’ve been told, and I’ve gone along with it for long enough.’ He paused and tapped the heavy silver braid on the epaulettes of his uniform jacket. ‘But the fact is, I won’t have anyone operating as a police officer anywhere in this building, or even in this city, and imagining that I’ve no jurisdiction over what he does.
‘I’m the Chief Constable here, you’re out of your own area, and you will answer any question which I choose to put to you. I may have ordered Andy Martin not to see Bob Skinner informally until this nonsense is over, but that’s purely because I don’t want to take the slightest chance of compromising his career. If you think I’m going to sit on my arse and just watch as my deputy, and one of my best friends to boot, is sent down the Swannee, then think again, sir.
‘I know all about the declared and physical evidence that you have. Now, I want to know what you’ve got on who might have set Bob up.’
‘Or bribed him,’ said Cheshire, coldly.
‘Don’t even think that in this off ice,’ barked Proud, ‘far less say it. Now, I want to know what you’ve done to check into people he’s put away in his time. You can, and no doubt will, tell Archie Nelson all about this, but I’ve seen off a right few Lord Advocates in my time, so that doesn’t worry me. I’ve given you an order, now obey it.’
Cheshire capitulated. ‘Very good.
‘The fact is,’ he began, ‘the list isn’t a very long one. There are very few of Skinner’s customers with the means to do something like this, and they’re all inside. We’ve been to see the chap Plenderleith.’
‘Mmm, Big Lenny. That was brave of you.’
Cheshire nodded. ‘I thought so too. He’s bit of a monster, isn’t he? However, he does seem to hold Skinner in high regard. I’d expected to find malice there, but when I put the suggestion to him that he might have set this thing up, he took real offence. In fact, he left Ronnie and me in no doubt about what he would do to anyone who was out to get Skinner.’
‘You don’t surprise me,’ said the Chief. ‘He was in no doubt about it being a set-up, then?’
‘None at all, it seemed. He offered to help us in fact. I gather that Mr Plenderleith is a very important man in prisoner circles.’
‘Yes. He’s very rich, as well as being very dangerous.’
‘I see,’ said the Mancunian. ‘We accepted his offer in any event, as long as he promised not to have anyone killed. He did. He’s putting out feelers, to see if anyone knows anything about it.’
Proud nodded. ‘That’s unconventional, but go on.’
‘Next, we looked at the chap who was arrested after the Witches Hill affair. He hadn’t a clue what we were talking about. Apparently he lives in voluntary isolation. He refuses to do prison work, and he hasn’t had a visitor, a letter, or received or made a phone call since the day of his sentence. So you can forget him.’
Cheshire went on. ‘Finally we looked at the Jackie Charles case. The chap who was arrested at its conclusion . . .’
‘Yes, him,’ growled Proud.
‘You’ll recall he hanged himself in his cell, before he could be brought to trial. But then there was Charles himself. We interviewed him.’
‘And . . .’
‘And, to be frank, Sir James, that is where my suspicions lie. Charles agreed to see us without even asking why but when we got down to the substance of the enquiry, the allegations, he clammed up. He became positively evasive, wouldn’t answer direct questions, and finally, he asked for a lawyer.’
Proud scowled across the desk. ‘Jackie Charles has been evasive with police officers all his life. It’s second nature to him. He knows also that there’s no point in refusing to see us. He’s always preferred to get it over with quickly.’
‘Nevertheless, sir,’ countered the Englishman, ‘I have to be suspicious. He behaved almost coyly. It was as if he didn’t want to incriminate himself, but he wanted us to nail Skinner.’
‘Of course,’ Proud bellowed. ‘He hates Bob. It goes back almost twenty years. Bob arrested him in the end. Why the hell would he bribe him?’
Cheshire paused. ‘Well, Sir James, I know you took an interest in the case, so I’ll have to be diplomatic here. But didn’t it occur to you that after all the time that it took to nail Charles, it was odd that the charges Skinner pressed against him should be limited to tax evasion? Even in England, we were aware of the case. We expected many more serious charges, possibly murder or attempted murder.’
It was Proud’s turn to be hesitant. ‘There were circumstances, ’ he said, ‘which led Bob to conclude - with the agreement of the Procurator Fiscal, I must stress - that we should accept a plea to the counts we were sure of.’
‘Maybe there were, sir. But as dispassionate investigators, looking at the current set of circumstances, we have to look at the possibility that there may have been private considerations, of which you were not aware.’
‘Aye, I suppose so,’ the Chief agreed, reluctantly. ‘So what’s your next move?’
‘It’s being made right now, Sir James, by Ron
nie Ericson. We’ve looked at that case in the most minute detail, and there’s one thing we want to check.
‘For everyone’s sake,’ said Cheshire, heavily, ‘I really do hope that it draws a blank.’
66
‘Maybe I’ll be like Christabel in about sixty years,’ said Alex.
‘What,’ cried her father, vehemently, ‘a dried-up old dear with nothing in your life except the law? God forbid.
‘I hope that in sixty years time you will be secure in the enjoyment of your children and grandchildren, and still gaining pleasure from the care you lavish on your venerable husband.’
‘And on my centenarian father, I hope.’
He grinned across the garden table of the Fairyhouse Avenue bungalow, having used his unaccustomed leisure time to shop at the nearby Sainsbury’s for a salad-and-sandwich lunch for two. ‘No bloody chance of that,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll be in Dirleton Cemetery by that time.’
‘Beside Mum?’ asked Alex quietly.
Serious suddenly, he shook his head. ‘No. I’ve bought another lair a bit along from her grave. I won’t lie with Myra again, not even in death. You’ll have that option, though.’
‘With whom will you lie, then? Pamela? Or will it be . . .’
‘Time will tell,’ he said shortly. ‘It won’t be my decision, I hope. Jesus, girl, but this is morbid; change the subject.’ She tried to catch his eye, but for once he avoided her gaze.
‘Pops, are you beginning to . . .’
He cut her off. ‘I mean it. Let’s talk about something else. So what did you make of our Learned Counsel?’
‘She’s formidable still, isn’t she just?’ said Alex. ‘She seems to be as sharp as a tack, still. Mr Laidlaw was certainly impressed by her. I liked her analysis too. Things aren’t nearly as black when you look at it from her angle.’
He smiled. ‘Sure, but Christabel would be the first to remind you that optimism alone won’t make the jury see it her way. Sure, there are holes in the Crown case, but it’s still strong. The old dear made me admit that I wouldn’t choose to take it to court myself, but if I was forced to it I still reckon I’d have at least an even chance of a conviction.
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